Q It Again
by writerofprose
Summary: Picard thinks his position, as captain of the Enterprise, plays the largest role in Q's obsession with him. Q would like to take that bet, even if Picard wasn't making one. What say they try it again, from the start? Without the captain nonsense?
1. Chapter 1

"Interesting," Q said, raising his chin, blinking in that falsely studious way of his, as if the conversation had taken a turn he would have never expected.

As if.

Indeed, it was an exaggeration to even call their exchange a conversation. Picard knew when he was being baited, and he knew even better than to grapple with Q. He went to leave his ready room but the door did not open. He'd been prepared for that possibility, and so he did not slam into it like a fool—he retained his decorum. Straightening his jacket, he turned.

"'When you're here, Q,'" Q repeated the words slowly, contemplatively, "'sometimes I wish I weren't captain.' Jean-Luc. Are you really suggesting my interest in you is as the captain of a starship? That those peons of the lower decks would never hold my attention as you do, the great jewel of Starfleet? Do you truly believe your so-called importance is of any import to me?"

"You're here. Aren't you?"

"Yes, but captain or not, I would still engage you."

"This has been quite the engagement."

"Well it was your choice to say nothing to me."

"I was waiting for your point."

"You always presume I have one."

"You always do have one."

Q was silent. Because it was true, Picard decided.

The door still remained shut. In an act of defiance, Picard leaned against it. _Something more, Q? _he might have said.But he knew the answer.

Of course there was something more. When Q had appeared to Picard's usual protest, when Q had protested in turn that the captain of the Enterprise should be flattered by such a visit, Picard should have kept silent. Where one could not agree, silence was the wisest alternative. He most certainly should not have said, _Sometimes you make me wish I weren't captain, Q_, because if anyone should know by now it was Picard that throwing psychological nuance at Q was throwing oil on the flame. Sometimes…

Sometimes Q could be so childish. Sometimes one might be lulled into forgetting his complexity. He had spent the last few minutes sampling various teas from the replicator, then eyeing the lionfish in the tank, whispering inaudibly to it so that it swam upside down or made wild circles around the plants, and then lying on the couch, his hands folded over his stomach, staring at the ceiling as though his mind was lightyears away.

Q was still on the couch, still in that same position.

"It's an interesting concept, Picard, you must see it. All the questions it provokes? Why are you humans so closed off to what might have happened? It's clumsy even saying it. _What might have happened_. Less frightened species have words for it. If you had not been captain. Think about it. If Riker had been captain and not you, would it be him standing there? Would that be his collection of Shakespeare, his pet fish? Would it be he insisting that I always come to a point? Would I even speak to him? Would I visit this dreary starship at all?"

"I don't know, Q," Picard said.

"Sit down, Jean-Luc. It isn't going to open. Humor me, and then you may return to your work."

Punishment. That's what this was. Picard supposed he had earned it, spewing if-thens and could-have-beens like a dying probability equation. It was true: they didn't have a word for it. And now they were to going have a meeting about it, this wordless monstrosity. A dressing down. Picard was on the wrong side of the desk for that—usually the orders went the other direction; usually Picard was the one telling someone when they may or may not return to their work.

Q was neither annoyed nor amused by Picard's darkening mood. Blinking again in his falsely studious way, he clasped his hands in front of his knee.

"I'd like to think we're friends," he began.

"You may think whatever you like. It's of no concern to me."

"You don't think of us as friends?"

Picard rolled his eyes. "Are we really discussing this? Now?"

Q readjusted himself in the chair. "If my interest was in captains, there are thousands of captains far more accommodating than you. There are admirals. There's even a president, if we're talking humans."

Q was deliberately misinterpreting Picard's meaning, counting on Picard's pride—on Picard's need to be right—to draw the true meaning out. In the past Picard might have balked further, deliberately misunderstanding in turn. Now either his pride had shrunk or he didn't have time to care. He replied:

"I don't deny our… our level of interaction may have developed since our first meeting, but if not for our first meeting, if not for my status, the interaction would have never begun at all. That was my meaning."

"I categorically disagree."

"That it was my meaning?"

"No, with the meaning itself. I'll remind you I'm more qualified to analyze the past, and the present, and anything really."

Picard could not let that one go. "If I recall, you first contacted me for the purpose of putting humanity on trial. We were exploring beyond our borders, and you took issue with that. And so I was challenged, the captain of the Enterprise, the ship that happened to provoke you."

"True, as their leader, I addressed you. But not because I had to, not out of respect for your piddling hierarchy. I might have addressed one of your waiters in Ten Forward if it weren't confusing for all of you. It was the same as my decision to appear human. To speak your language instead of beaming everything into your head at once." Q made a popping gesture with his hand. "To you, the you which is Captain, I showed no favoritism at all; indeed, you were one of the many disgusting, insignificant humans I was going to whisk away into oblivion at the order of the Continuum, until you collectively proved yourselves otherwise. Yes, that moment, that ship, that captain was a matter of chance. But." Here, Q quirked his lips mischievously. "It was my choice to come back."

"When the Continuum wanted a human specimen."

Q winced at the word. "And were I obsessed with the captain of the Enterprise I would have chosen its captain as the _specimen_. But I didn't."

"You chose Riker, the second-in-command, as a playing piece in a game with his _captain_."

"I believe you instigated that bet. In fact, you've weakened your argument; it was because of that bet I really noticed you. That delightfully infuriating lecture you gave me on Hamlet. Hamlet, of all things. No, no, Jean-Luc, pish posh on your captain of the Enterprise. Anyone challenging me, anyone astonishing me with such eloquence, such unthinking obstinacy, would have caught my eye. Worf. You'll notice I even have a small fondness for Worf. Were he not lacking a brain, perhaps I could say more."

"I'm sure you would find many Starfleet captains who would challenge you, Q, when their crew's lives are at stake."

"That isn't true. They're terrified of me. They're relieved I picked you."

"Picked me. Exactly. A matter of whim."

"A figure of speech, Picard. I do pick when and where and with what to annoy you."

Exactly true. It only irked worse that he admitted it. "Well. Well, if that is where it stands, Q, then I shall amend my statement. Sometimes, I wish I had never stood up to you. No, I wish my standing up to you had not been an unequivocal moral imperative. I wish that morality was not so foreign to you that you find it so fascinating in me."

Q let go of his knee. He looked away. He went to the window and stood there so long Picard wondered if he might try leaving again. He started to sit up…

"There is one way to settle this," Q said.

… and fell back again.

"And what way is that?"

"Doing it over."

It turned in him slowly, the words. A friend might say this to another, joking, perhaps adding something about hindsight being 20/20, for neither had the power to make the thing happen. Q had that power. "No. No, absolutely not. And I'm afraid I must end our conversation here and return to my work." Picard went to the door. It _still_ refused to yield. He felt like slamming his fists into it.

"You don't even know what I'm proposing," Q said.

"I know exactly what you're proposing. If I'm correct you've done this to me once before, haven't you?"

"Something like it."

"Well, I've played this game already. And God knows I've played enough of your games..."

"For one lifetime? How about the second lifetime I gave you? Oh, Jean-Luc, I don't mean it like that. That was a gift. You'll notice I haven't held it over you. I promise I'm not doing that now. I don't _have_ to coerce you. Fortunately."

They stared at each other. Q, the picture of amusement.

It was getting so old. Picard was growing so tired. How could anyone find this interesting, still, least of all a being who could do anything, everything else?

"You asked for a moment of my time," Picard said. It might work. There was the tiniest chance it might work.

"I changed my mind."

Picard closed his eyes.

"Don't look so annoyed. You think of it as a game, you're working yourself up. Think of it as an opportunity in self-discovery. You'll enjoy this one. You'll enjoy it more than I will."

Picard did not reply. He would not give Q the satisfaction of pleading any further. He would not give Q the satisfaction of playing this game either, but Q would learn that in due time.

"So." Q clapped. "We do it again, we do it cleanly. No Enterprise—we must remove any aspect of rank. And if I don't find you every bit as affable and eager and _trusting_ as I do now—if I _don't_ notice you—you'll win. Something. We'll decide afterwards."

A prize. As if a prize would lessen how disgusting this was.

"See, that's the sort of expression you'll want to avoid. Because I _will_ notice that."

"Don't do this. You think of me as a friend? Is this really how a friend would treat another?"

Q looked at the ceiling. He sighed, a vocalization, a rasping, and—he did not know it—an uncanny approximation of Picard's own feelings on the matter. "As if he's going to the guillotine. Have some fun, won't you? It was your idea."


	2. Chapter 2

_Dear Arthur F. Weathersby: _

_I realize my error in giving you such little information. In my defense, you were glaring at me. As you've already assessed, I've kept your memories as Picard intact. I've simply slipped Arthur's in beside them. You're very smart, you'll figure it out. This is the fairest way; it eliminates the variable that you might very well be drawn to me. While that in itself would be a worthy experiment, we'll stay with this one, the one where you have a chance._

_As far as I'm concerned, I've never met you in my life. _

_It would be simple for you to win by holing up in your office all evening, so I will impose a single rule. You must approach me. You must speak to me. And more than once, say, three times before the clock strikes twelve. _

_Judgment will commence following._

_Q_

_PS. Burn this note, will you, before I notice it?_

* * *

Picard stood in the room that had been his office of twenty-odd years. Burn the note. Burn it with what? The image of matches came to mind, books of them with the winery's emblem stamped on the front, tucked into the lower drawer of his solid oak desk. His oak desk. His office? Merde. It was overwhelming, to stand in this room and know nothing about it, and yet, at the same time, to know it as intimately as his ready room on the Enterprise.

Arthur F. Weathersby. That was his name. Born on a farm, he'd enjoyed an idyllic childhood of riding horses and memorizing poetry, followed with an adolescence of writing poetry, and then, at last, an adulthood of abandoning poetry to pursue his true passion: wine. He'd been married once, but there were foul memories associated with that, better off ignored. All that was left to him now was fifty acres of grapes and a wine bar. The Twin Grape, he'd named it, one of several buildings situated at the edge of the vineyard—one of which was his home—outside the town of Shookend, a population of about nine-thousand and known locally for its artisanal—

Too much.

Captain of the Enterprise. He was Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Enterprise, and he was relieved to find his memories still there, as Q had said. His. Jean-Luc's. Not Arthur's. His own.

He found himself in a freckled mirror over the fireplace. Good. He still looked like himself. He was simply wearing another man's clothes. Green and navy, comfortable enough though not in his style. Once he had come home to find his closet empty. The bed was stacked high with flat white boxes which opened to reveal things of suede and corduroy and wool. He'd hurled a box of loafers across the room before flying down the stairs to demand the bitch tell him what she had done with his real clothes—

Stop.

Q had said he'd 'slipped the memories' beside his own, but Picard could write an essay disputing that terminology. More accurate to say Q had 'hurled,' had 'flooded,' had 'buried'… How was he supposed to play a game of interpersonal espionage when he couldn't keep his own thoughts straightened out? Even as he tried to focus his thoughts on the here, the now, objects in the here and now dragged him back to the past. The office reeked of sentiment. Cluttered and dusty, not at all like Picard's ready room on the Enterprise.

Picard made for the bar. On the way he passed two members of his staff, both dressed in black. Josh, his assistant manager, had been showing all the signs of working himself up to ask for a raise. Hannah was retiring next month, moving off-world to—

Picard focused on the bar. On its occupants. A few scattered silhouettes steeped in cones of light, but none of them were Q's. Unless Q looked differently now. No, that would defeat the point of Arthur, of Picard, retaining his old memories—his actual memories. Q be damned! Picard resisted the impulse to bark at one of his employees to let him know the instant the son of a bitch showed himself. He was used to barking at his employees. No one would question it.

Last season Agatha had forgotten to stock the refrigerator with port, something they had only discovered after going to all the trouble of building a Reyton chocolate dish for a customer, and so that was money out the door. He had cursed her out the door after it—

Picard turned away from the room, set his hands flat on the back bar and found his bearings while staring at a bottle of Cabernet half a meter from his nose. It might have been a bottle of anything. He needed somewhere neutral to rest his eyes. Was it possible to quiet the memories? Although he loathed to remember, he had experienced this once before, multiple memories and multiple thoughts swarming through a single mind, his own mind though he had not felt much ownership of it; but he had enjoyed that then; he hadn't wanted to resist; that was the true horror. He shouldn't conflate these situations: they were very different; besides he needed to focus. Now was not the time for a psychotic breakdown. He wasn't impotent here, he told himself. Neither was he in pain, he added. Neither had he lost his sense of self. All positive outcomes.

He could do this. He could focus.

Arthur F. Weathersby. An infantile name.

Being the owner of a winery was infantile too, if the point was for him to blend in with the scenery. Did Q even frequent this place? It seemed a little rustic, a little dirty for Q's tastes, though Picard had to admit he had no idea what Q's tastes actually were. Arthur F. Weathersby had never seen Q here before. Up came another irksome thought, the worst one yet: If Q was not already here, if Q truly had abandoned his memory of Picard, what reason would he have to show any urgency in appearing? Or to appear at all?

Picard polished and re-polished wine glasses to pass the time. It was a nervous tick the employees mocked Arthur for. His hands were pleasantly familiar with the motions. When that was done with, he began drinking the wine. It was good. Too good. He so rarely had the real thing aboard the Enterprise, and perhaps it wasn't smart, testing his tolerances this way, but he poured himself a second glass, and then a third.

He had arrived at 1600 hours. Days on Braetis lasted 21 hours, which left five hours until "the clock struck twelve." The time was 1820, the second sun was just dipping behind the eastern hills, when the door whined open and Q strode across the threshold.

Q scanned the room with an air of disinterest. His eyes fell on Picard's—and Picard felt a jolt of something in his stomach. Relief? Hope? He let out a breath he'd been holding for two hours. But Q's gaze passed over him with as much boredom as it had come, digesting the room and finding nothing worth changing his expression about. A woman slipped from behind him, tall, ashy-blonde, wearing jodhpurs and riding boots. Q kissed her forehead and nodded her toward a booth in the corner. After a moment of admiring her gate, he made for the bar.

Straight to Picard.

"You're the owner, aren't you? Wine, please, for the lady and myself. Nothing too sour, better make it your most expensive bottle."

How simply Picard might have won this game! Q wasn't even looking at him, was leaning sideways against the bar and pinching off a pair of suede leather riding gloves. When Picard replied with a firm "No," it earned a smirk from him but still nothing in the way of eye contact.

"I assure you we can pay," Q said.

"It isn't the money."

Now Q gave him the full brunt of his attention. Picard watched him work it out, why this Arthur F. Weathersby would be standing there, ready to serve and yet so belligerent—or so out-of-wine. Q's eyes fell to Picard's shirt pocket, and yes, good; Picard had forgotten it was there but it couldn't have gone better if he'd planned it. Picard pulled out the letter and dropped it on the bar between them.

"I'm not doing this, Q. I'm not sure what about forcing me was supposed to make me amenable to the proposition, but I'm as opposed to it as I was aboard the Enterprise, of course—and you have successfully wasted your time and mine." He could have gone on. He'd been cooking up a lecture for the past two hours, but his words' effect on Q was…

Well, it was fascinating.

If Picard had any doubt Q had actually removed his memories, they were gone now. At the word "Enterprise" the tendons in Q's neck had bulged and his face had drained of emotion. Then, after the initial shock had passed, fury reshaped him, his eyes solidifying, his jaw clenching tight. But if Q did not enjoy being shocked he enjoyed being angry even less, for his emotions made a third hard turn, settling upon something to which Picard was much more accustomed: an amused acceptance. Q set his gloves on the bar—so slowly, so carefully, as though they were made of shortbread and might crumble.

"Do you realize," Q began, forcing a smile into a grimace. "Do you realize how difficult it is for me to clear my mind like that?" He flicked the letter and it burst into dust, pelting Picard's shirt like flour. "You should lose by default. But you want that, don't you? This wasn't easy for me, making this completely fair."

"What about this is fair?" A few patrons glanced their way. Picard, out of habit not out of any real desire for decorum, lowered his voice. "No, Q, you will return me to the Enterprise, now. That is the only 'fair' I will accept."

"I shouldn't have offered some vague prize. The fact that I couldn't imagine a prize you would accept should have been clue enough."

"Now, Q."

"Why? What's so horrible about this?"

"Everything."

"The venue? I chose something you knew about. I gave you the memories so you wouldn't have to stutter through. That's most of the work done for you."

"I didn't agree to this. The venue is irrelevant."

"But you've not agreed before and changed your mind."

"That does not make it right."

"You've been glad about it. You've learned from it."

"Not this time, Q."

"Which is what you say every time."

"Not this time!"

Heads turned again. Even the mysterious woman in the jodhpurs glanced up from her book.

"Inside voices," Q said. "We're upsetting your guests."

Picard felt himself grow heavier, thicker, as though he were turning into stone. It wasn't Q but his own anger making it so. Repeating himself was becoming depressing. He retreated to the back bar where he thought of new arguments to hurl at Q. Though comforting to imagine, he eliminated them one after the other for their inadequacy.

Q clasped his hands on the bar. "Don't bother. It's pointless educating me in the nuances of consent. I'm aware of them, and I see their uses where lower life forms are concerned, where safety is an issue, but it isn't here. I'm not some flawed ape. I do know what's best for you. Now, I've tried positive reinforcement with the offer of the prize. I could offer punishment but you've never responded well to that. Frankly, Jean-Luc, I'm surprised you aren't curious. Tired of exploring already?"

"What exactly is there to explore?"

"Me, when I don't know you. How I'd be, what I'd say. I'm curious."

"Of course you are."

"I'm hurt you don't find me as fascinating as I do. There is another way of doing this. I can bring all the captains to us; we'll see if I don't pick you out in a crowd of them."

"No."

"Very well. But this is all that's left if we're not involving your captains or your crew. I ask you again: why have I found you so disgruntled?"

"If you truly have the power to remove your memories, you should try doing to yourself what you've done to me."

"But I can't forget I'm me."

It was like scaling a rock wall. One must reevaluate one's path with each advancement, or where there were no advancements, pursue some other way. "If the point is to remove my rank, to make me indistinguishable from any civilian here, it's absurd that I am in full command of the establishment of our meeting."

"Command isn't the word. A person of your age and intelligence would have some accomplishment, Jean-Luc. But you've overestimated yourself. This is one of thousands of vineyards on this continent alone. I am pleased we're discussing the game."

"One of thousands of its absurdities."

"Well don't be polite. Let's hear them."

"Return me to my ship."

Q turned away.

"You can't play this game without my involvement," Picard said.

Q turned back, his chin high. "Oh can't I?"

What was that supposed to mean? Exactly what he thought it meant, he realized. When Q closed his eyes and opened them again, the moment was over. Q had moved past it—though its aftertaste, like something burnt, would linger in Picard's mouth.

"You're worried," Q said. "Why? _Besides_ my forcing you."

"That is not reason enough?"

"Ignore that one. Please."

"And what if I told you that was all there was?"

"Can you?"

Picard could not.

Oddly enough, he felt better. He had made his point. Lodged his complaint. If he wasn't getting out of this, at least he could proceed knowing he had done his full duty.

"You insist you'll win," Picard said.

"I'm adamant I'll win in exactly the same way you're adamant I won't."

Picard had been adamant he wouldn't play, but he supposed he did think he would win if it came to that. "The terms of your winning are that you will notice me. What if you noticing me involves you hurling me into a black hole and never realizing what you've done?"

Reaching over the counter, Q took the wine bottle Picard had opened. He emptied it into the glass. "You should have some more."

"After we agree on the prize."

Q snapped. The room froze, everyone in their motion; a holodeck program, paused. The flames in the fireplace were glowing, pulsing shards.

"Name your price," Q said, drinking the wine himself.

"It's only as good as your word, which you've broken before."

"When?"

"You once promised to keep away from the Enterprise."

"I kept that promise. You asked me back."

"You coerced me."

"Perfect. I have a feeling your prize concerns my use of coercion."

"You won't be allowed to do it. You'll have to receive a yes, every time. It's a courtesy you should extend to every life form, not only me. It's a moral principle applicable when any sentient species interacts, among themselves or with others, especially the more intelligent, the more capable species such as your Continuum. You have no one to enforce it, Q, but it matters all the more for that."

Q was in the middle of a long sip of wine and did not answer.

"And your prize?" Picard said.

Q set the glass down, empty. "Jean-Luc, this is my prize. I've claimed it advance."

In the corner, the woman's hand had paused in the act of turning the page. She had glanced their way more than once since she'd sat down. Q had not once glanced in hers.

"Who is she? That woman?"

In reply, Q looked amused.

"Three times, Picard. Maybe you'll find out. I'll come in again, shall I?"

As the front door shut, the room returned to life. That was not the only thing. The memories of Arthur F. Weathersby flooded Picard's mind once more. Q must have frozen their whirring like the flames in the fireplace. Now he was stuck with them.

It was disconcerting, remembering how to push them back. He should have asked Q to get rid of them—except maybe Q would sense their absence. Or maybe Q couldn't get rid of them; maybe they were as essential to Arthur as Picard's memories were to him. Picard chided himself for forgetting to inquire after the wellbeing of Arthur, though he doubted Q would have answered a question such as that.

Q came in again. He nodded to the woman in the corner before approaching Picard. This time Picard spoke first.

"So you're the lucky one that goes with her. Someone like that, she's been waiting longer than I would have guessed."

Q squinted at him. He pinched off his gloves finger by finger. "Do you have a wine to recommend? Red, smoky, nothing too acidic. I've come a long way."

"I'll send one over."

"Some accident in the kitchen?" Q denoted Picard's shirt with a downward glance.

The note. Picard laughed. "No, no, nothing like that." He wiped the powder from his shirt with his shining cloth. In his peripheral vision, he watched Q leave.

It was eerie, how simple this was.

One down, two to go.


	3. Chapter 3

The woman was the anomaly. Everyone else in the bar, Picard—or rather Weathersby—recognized from previous visits. She was beautiful, of course. One long, bare arm draped atop the booth in an easy, confident way, not dissimilar to how Riker would have sat were he sitting here now. Her hair was short, tousled from what had presumably been a horse ride. Q was playing with her hair, twisting it around his finger as they perused a wine menu. With anyone else, this proximity might have stated something about their relationship. With Q, who had never grasped the concept of personal space, it could mean anything. Their relationship was irrelevant anyway. The game was the thing, and now that Picard had decided to play he was determined to win.

His strategy had come to him in the space of a moment. It was the most obvious one, and it seemed counterintuitive to second-guess it. Years of Starfleet had trained him to summarize every goal into a single, digestible statement, and here it was: Discern what it was which interested Q and present to him exactly the opposite.

Fortunately Q had already revealed his soft underbelly. "Anyone with such eloquence, such unthinking obstinacy, would have caught my eye." Declared from Picard's ready room, free for the taking, though Picard could have surmised as much from their previous dealings. Dispassion and obsequiousness, they would armor Picard now.

… though one wondered why Q would announce what he admired in Picard immediately _before_ daring Picard to bore him. It was almost as if Q were deliberately misdirecting him. Best not to overthink it, though. Where Q was concerned, the statement could just as easily be attributed to swagger.

Obsequious and reserved. They were easy things for a waiter to be.

Interaction two.

Picard laid two napkins at their table and set the glasses atop those. He showed them the wine before unscrewing it. Q didn't look up but the woman nodded her approval. They bore all the signs of having been caught in a private conversation: their stiff posture, her biting of the lip, his sudden interest in the table setting.

"This wine has the fortune of being both the most expensive bottle and one of my favorites. I'm sure you'll find it far from tart."

"The most expensive bottle," Q said, surprised. "Presumptuous on your part. My dear, did you ask for the most expensive bottle?"

He was right. That request had come the first time through; Q wouldn't remember it now. Picard forced a chuckle. "I took the liberty. It's discounted today, and since it's better than what I'd normally offer at this price, I doubted you would mind. I can return it if you'd like?"

"You've already poured it," Q observed.

"Don't be an ass." This from the woman. A pair of sunglasses hung on her blouse, pulling it lower than it might have gone otherwise. "You'll have to excuse him. We've ridden a long way. Sania's as hot as Shater, I swear."

The twin suns. Weathersby's memories of the suns waved through him: their hours of rising, of setting, their heat differential, which seasons their placement signaled and all manner of customs, culture and myth surrounding them.

All irrelevant to the game.

Focus.

"It's no problem," Picard said. "Quite honestly, I'll drink it myself if you prefer something else."

"It's perfect," she said.

Q sniffed the glass and wrinkled his nose.

"Give it fifteen minutes," Picard said—to Q, pointedly to Q, leaving no doubt as to what this was should Q decide to quibble. "Is there anything else you would like, sir? We have a selection of cheeses, breads and desserts."

He waited to be sent away.

"Are you the owner?" the woman asked.

Picard forced a smile. . The first interaction was so easy, he supposed it only fair to fight for this one. "What gave it away?"

"Drinking on the job," Q said.

"I'm not sure. You seem like someone who'd own a winery. How old is this place?"

Of course now that Picard needed the memories they were reluctant in coming. He hesitated longer than he would have liked. And such a specific fact too! "Twenty one years."

"Are you the original owner?"

"No, no, I, ah… I bought it from a gentleman who had given it a sort of test run. A very wealthy man and a very brief test run. I was lucky. I would have paid four times as much cobbling all of this together myself."

"Fascinating! I should have been over here years ago. Quincy's been by four times, and he's not even from here."

Picard was pinioned; he had to ask. "And where are you from?"

"Somewhere you've never heard of," Q said.

"Far. But he comes all this way for your wine. My mother owns a whalery by Knaz. Quincy," she side-nodded to Q, "has been asking me to ride up here for months. It's just that I always shy from taking the horses this far. They're finicky when the grass thins out."

She continued speaking of her horses and optimal riding conditions and the weather lately while Picard smiled politely and was only half listening for all the attention he was giving Q. Q was slouched in his chair, twisting the wine glass by its stem. The Q in the midst of a game. The Q who was supposed to be having fun. He reminded Picard rather of Wesley in his sullen teenage years, precocious and miserable for it. In bringing this woman along, Q had sabotaged himself. With her to dazzle him why would he stray? Picard was beginning to wonder how he might begin to stray himself when he was asked another question. He recognized it by the upward swing in her sentence, but he hadn't heard.

"I'm sorry?"

"I just asked if you'd seen him here before. But I doubt you'd know if he was here anyway. He's always like this around people. I took him to a Corynn wind concert and he left in the first intermission, and the second intermission I went out and found him throwing stones in the water. He said he was suffocating from the crowd. How many people were there, Quincy? It doesn't matter. He keeps to himself whenever he can manage it."

"You make me sound so antisocial," Q said.

"Darling, you are antisocial. I'm making you sound introverted."

With a delicate sniff, Q sat up straighter.

To Picard, she said, "Oh but we're keeping you from your work."

"Keeping him? From the thirteen customers and four staff members he has to wait on them? Yes, he's a very busy man."

To this Weathersby would have replied no, of course they weren't keeping him—would have played right into her hands, and she would have caught him, trapped him for longer than was safe. Weathersby had certainly wined with customers before. But Picard was in control here, and Picard laughed, feigned awkwardness and waited to be released.

"Last night he had a whole ten customers," Q said. "Five the night before that. Why he has four people on staff is one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. One is about to quit. You should let her go now," he said to Picard, "and keep the position empty. Really, you should fire all of them and hire someone competent. One competent employee, like that Cedric you had during your surgery last year. With someone like that, you could fill the room."

"Don't listen to him. He's showing off. Quincy pays more attention to things than anyone ought to."

"It's not paying attention if you already know."

"Because he's been here so many times."

"My dear, I appreciate you making excuses for me, but you needn't. Does this man look at all concerned by my knowledge? No. And why would he? I gave an invaluable critique of his business model, with examples, with suggestions. It could have been so much worse."

Her countenance fell, and she fingered the stem of her wine glass. It was as if her extroversion had leaped out of her mouth and down his.

Q leaned back, smiling. "This is my best party trick. Shall I?"

"Astonish me," Picard said. It wasn't difficult to remain reserved and agreeable when he could guess what was coming.

"Four hundred and twenty-two. That's how many wine bottles you have in this building alone. Two. The number of beer kegs. Eighty, the wine glasses, fifty red, thirty white, and twenty-four, the champagne flutes. One was broken last year, never replaced. As for the cheeses, there's a wheel of cheddar, a hefty block of parmesan, some robiola, taleggio, gouda, pecorino, gruyere, gorgonzola, three types of blue, a cambozola, burrata and feta. A bottle of fresh milk in the cooler and three bottles of port. One of those is aged 50 years; you'll have to bring that next, with chocolate. The lady loves chocolate. You've a room full of dry goods, shall I continue in there? How about a full list of the wines?"

Weathersby would be shocked by this, but would it be too interesting of a response? Picard stopped short of accusing Q of telepathy, which Weathersby had never heard of—which Q probably knew. "I am… most impressed. What is it called, a photographic memory? I see Josh let you into the wine cellar. Perhaps you're right. I should boot all of them into the cold for good."

The woman wilted and took Q's hand. "He's guessed it. Enough of your fun."

Q whispered something to her and she laughed, throaty and forced. To Picard she said, "He probably just found your office. You should lock your inventory in the drawer."

"Yes. I should lock the door as well." Picard refilled their glasses, though they didn't really need it, and told Q again what a good trick it was, how he should consider making money off of it. "Perhaps the stage would be more agreeable to him than the audience," he said to the woman. "What a memory. I can't even be angry." He chuckled.

"That's exactly right. You should use your talents for good, Quincy, not evil."

Q's eyes, though they were fixed on Picard, were inscrutable.

"If you'll forgive me," Picard said, "I could speak to you two all night, but…"

"You have work," she said. "We're sorry."

"Don't be. I'll have the port sent up along with the chocolate."

In the privacy of the hallway, Picard leaned into the wall and released a tense breath. Dodging Q's powers had not been part of the bet. The bet had _not_ entailed how he would react to Q but how Q would react to _him_. Q's powers turned everything on its head. If this were Picard and not Weathersby, if the goal were not to avoid notice, he would kick Q out the door for so blatantly invading his private property. Also, there'd been no mention of a third player. The woman, whatever her name was, had nearly invited him to sit! She knew about Q's abilities, and Picard felt uneasy about that. He was not looking forward to their third interaction.

He kept to Weathersby's office for the next half hour, recovering. When memories continued to pelt him at every turn, he found relief in a deck of cards and a table near the fireplace. The rug stirred memories, as did the table, as did the fire poker in the corner of his eye, but these were mild trinkets of thought. After he explored them, they stopped their niggling and fell asleep.

At 1915, Josh spoke from the door.

"Booth five. They want to talk with you again. Sorry."

Picard slung a card across the room. "Josh, if they've got me more than five minutes, come and rescue me. That's an order."

Josh saluted. "Yes, sir."

If Q could involve a third party, so could he. More confident now, Picard wound his way back to the table. He came bearing nothing and clasped his hands subserviently in front of him. The couple pulled away when they noticed him. "I hope you're both enjoying yourself?"

"How's work?" she asked.

"Wonderful. How is the port?"

They answered at once. She, "Excellent," and Q muttered something. "Erobela," was the sound of it.

"Very good. And may I get you anything else?"

Q looked at her. She looked at her hands.

"Yes, actually." She laughed nervously. "I feel awful, you don't even know my name. It's Edwen." She held out her hand.

Picard took it. "Arthur."

"Quincy," Q said, lifting and lowering his finger. "Now that we all know each other, the lady has something to ask you."

"Well really, Quincy has something to ask you too. Both of us. It's just a little bet, I guess."

Picard's smile fell. "I'm sorry?"

"We were just having an argument. I said one thing, he said another. We thought you might settle it."

Picard bit back a quip about how he should have bet this would have happened, put a triple bet down on this double. Bets within bets, exactly like Q. And this one, too, Picard must accept against his choosing.

"He doesn't want to do it," Edwen said.

"He would if you asked nicely."

"Please?" She gestured to the opposite side of the booth. "Sit?"

"And what exactly does this bet entail?"

The contained fury in his voice was one-hundred percent Picard, and so was Q's response, a deathly serious: "_Sit_."

Picard was used to resisting that. It was only for the Weathersby charade that he would comply. _Obsequious, reserved_, he reminded himself.

Whatever expression colored his face, the woman—Edwen—watched it with mournful eyes. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" said Q.

"Don't pretend like it's fun for him."

"Never."

"Would you mind if I—" Picard never finished the thought. His voice was a mouse's breath compared to the thunderclap of Q's snap. The Twin Grape vanished around them. So did the planet.

While at the Academy, Picard had trained in zero-g outside of the Earth Spacedock. The Earth had blocked most of his vision of the stars and the Spacedock most of everything else. He enjoyed the stars from the Enterprise, usually from the comfort of his quarters or Ten Forward. Geordi had programmed a holodeck simulation where one could walk atop the hull of the Enterprise, experiencing the full scope of the heavens without the discomfort of zero-g. Picard had never run that simulation, but he felt as though he was running it now. He felt as though he was experiencing an unfulfilled and subconscious longing, suspending as he was in the dead of space, free from all visual and physical impediments. He might have even been happy were not reality much different from his fantasy.

Reality was terrifying.

His first thought was of survival. He could still breath; that was good. And he was warm; space had not sucked that away. He was still sitting in the booth—he could feel it there, beneath him—though he could not see it. He saw through it. Far below him hung a galaxy, foamy and blue. Above him, another galaxy like a white gash. And off to his right, a star hovered, its energy furring out. It was massive, heating them with the palpable brunt of a bonfire. No wonder he wasn't freezing; he risked being singed or radiated to death. Involuntarily, he moved away from the star, though with the curvature of the booth it only served to position the white-hot light directly in front of him. He held up his hand.

It was at that moment, with a thud in his ears, Picard remembered he was being observed.

Later he would realize why Weathersby's reaction had failed him, why he had wholly forgotten about it. Picard had been working from the man's memories, not the man himself, and Weathersby had never experienced anything like the dead of space. No, what Picard had given Q was unfiltered, unprocessed Starfleet.

Q's face lay in half shadow from the star, like an orbiting planet. Half of his mouth was scowling, half of his brow was furrowed with ill-temper. Edwen had grabbed onto his arm and shrunk against him, eclipsing herself. Her voice was a breath.

"He isn't afraid."

"No. No, he isn't." Q said. "I wonder why that is." His voice was more substantial than even its normal substantiality. It was as if the Enterprise had ever only contained him and here, here in the vacuum of space, he could relax into his true gravitas.

"The bet," she said. "I won. Take us back."

"Did you? There seems to be an extenuating circumstance."

"He isn't afraid. I told you he wouldn't be afraid."

"He isn't anything."

But Picard was afraid; he just hadn't make a circus of it like Weathersby probably would have. And he couldn't very well start making a circus of it now.

"It's gone too far," Picard said. "End this, Q."

Q raised an eyebrow. "Now that is interesting." He leaned forward for a closer look. And so did the star, swelling to the size the Earth had been in Picard's zero-g training. Like an explosion, it lit them. Picard pounded on the table, but the gravity was wrong; his arm moved too slow.

"Q! Jean-Luc Picard. Enterprise!"

The roar of the star swallowed his voice.

He reached to grab Q's hand. Just as he touched it, the light clicked out. He slumped on the blessed table in the blessed booth of the Twin Grape on the planet whose name he could not remember, and he released Q's hand. It was not his proudest moment.

"Jean-Luc…"

The oak was cool on his forehead. His breath wheezed through his nose.

"I _am_ sorry, Jean-Luc. I was surprised, that was all. I thought Q was tricking me again."

"So you decided to kill me." It was muffled, but Q heard.

"You wouldn't have died."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you wouldn't have died… permanently. And I didn't think I was killing you, I thought you were Q."

"How would you have…" No. This question was too important to ignore Q's face. Picard sat up. Q's eyes were haunted, penitent. "And how exactly would you have known to bring me back?"

"When I discovered you were mortal, of course."

"How would you have known to bring _me_ back? How does that work?"

Q winced beneath that question. "It's not something you would grasp."

Q was always falling back on that. And probably it was true, but Picard wasn't in the mood to be understanding. He left the booth without another word. In the office, he shut the door and went about reclaiming his serenity. It was a slow thing, and he wished Q was not two walls away because he might have recovered faster. Picard could almost feel him in the room, waiting for him. In the end, he gave up trying to recover.

"I cannot believe we are here, that you have not returned me to the Enterprise." He shouted this across the empty bar. "And what have you done with all of these? What have you done with Weathersby? I sincerely hope he has not been harmed in any way, or any of these people, for the sake of your enjoyment."

"Jean-Luc, try not to resort to hysterics. You have a valid complaint that I was reckless, but your manner only weakens your point."

"Complaining about my manner under these circumstances is… is infantile. Return me to the ship, Q."

"No. The bet is not done."

"Because you botched it."

Q laughed dismissively.

"You admit you were reckless," Picard said.

"_I'm sorry_. Does that help? You're not dead, and you won't die, and frankly you're making yourself miserable far longer than is helpful."

"The very thing I thought you would do. The very thing I warned you against. Not a black hole though; I should have specified stars as well. The bet is over, Q."

Q tapped the table, rapidly. He stood. His eyes lifted to Picard's before his face did. And then came the verdict.

"If it is over, then I won. I noticed you."

"_She_ noticed me." Picard pointed to where the woman had been.

"I noticed you by watching you interact with someone else. A technicality, Picard."

"How very convenient for you, to have someone else do all your lifting."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Had she not been here, you would have moped in place for the entirety of the night. I understand now why you were so confident. You had a ringleader. As if that happened at Farpoint."

"You've over-simplified it once again, but I'm not in the mood to explain. I'm not in the mood to convince you I won either. You want this to end? You want to return to the box that is your ready room and never think outside its walls again? Fine. But let the record show… you forfeited."

"I do not forfeit. _You've_ lost control of this."

Then Q did something surprising. He did not immediately reply. He seemed to think about what Picard had said. He poured a long glass of wine and set the bottle on the table so delicately it did not make a sound and announced almost as delicately, "You're right."

After a pause, as though to let Picard savor it, he elaborated. "It's different than what I intended. I thought it was going to be fun, something light and whimsical like the mood I was in. A wine bar. A harmless bet. A planet you've never heard of. But it's contrived, overworked. That's how it feels to me; I can't imagine how it feels to you, the third time this would be?"

Picard should have been relieved. He should have said, Yes, Q, I'm glad you see it that way, Q, return me to the Enterprise now, Q. But it was too simple. No, there was something here, something he couldn't put his finger on. Something dark and fascinating lurking in the pauses between Q's words, in the things Q had not said.

"You're afraid you're going to lose," Picard realized.

"I'm not afraid I'm going to lose, I don't even think I'm going to lose. Would lose."

"I don't believe you."

"Enough. I'll give you your prize."

"So you can take it back later on the grounds that I didn't win it in the first place? No. That's not good enough."

"As if it's something you'll own."

"We're finishing this, now."

"It's so difficult," Q said through a groan. "Harder and harder every time."

"You weren't complaining a minute ago."

"I've told you. It's not easy for me to forget things. It's warring with myself, millisecond after millisecond, and each time forgetting that I've done it. Gods can't create stones larger than they can carry, true, but the stone is getting more and more heavy and less and less… fun."

Picard positioned himself behind the bar. Q was smart enough to understand, and he trudged over, stopping in the same place where they had last time reset the bet. Q leaned on the bar—not to lean closer but for actual support. He appeared exhausted.

"I need Edwen."

"Why?" asked Picard.

"Because I do."

"You've finagled everything else. I'm sure you'll think of something." It reminded Picard. "This man, this person I am pretending to be. I don't want his memories. I don't need them."

"That works against you," Q said. "I'll notice you, the man whose memories don't match his situation."

"Surely you can make it so I don't _hear_ them. I sincerely hope he is not being damaged by any of this, Q, this Arthur Weathersby. Because if that is the case, I would forfeit—"

Picard appeared in Weathersby's office, mid-speech, and closed his mouth. The clock on the wall read 1840. It was later than he had started last time, but that was just as well. He could win this bet in half an hour if he needed to. He pushed back the curtain to see the vineyard striped across dark hills. Closing time, what was it again?

With a surge of relief, Picard realized it was not Weathersby's memories but his own coming up empty. He would ask one of his employees. He only had to fool them, and Q, for a few hours more.

Then this would never happen again. Then he would refuse Q until the day he died.


	4. Chapter 4

Q was not in the booth when Picard looked for him. Picard felt a surge of unease until he found Q slouched by the fireplace. He was alone there, and the guests who occupied that area before now occupied all other parts of the bar. The room had flipped to suit Q's changing mood. Q's eyes, trained upon the fire, were both more brooding and more tired than ever. Picard took a menu with him. He felt an old pro at this, now.

"Excuse me, sir. Have you been offered a menu?"

"No."

Picard extended it, but Q ignored him. "Wonderful," Picard said. "And will there be another joining you tonight?"

"I'm familiar with your cellar. I'll have the canari noir 23."

"I'll have it brought out."

Behind the bar, Picard asked Josh to make it so. He took a wineglass and a clean cloth. It gave his hands something to do as he glanced discreetly in Q's direction. This was not the Q who had started this game; that was obvious. Something _had_ changed in Q's resetting. Perhaps Q's reluctance to continue was coloring the play. Perhaps it was that he knew how easily Picard would win. He didn't know that now, of course, but before, and perhaps his knowing had upset him. What was the saying? Woken him up on the wrong side of the bed?

Well, Picard thought wryly, that was just too bad.

He felt like preemptively celebrating, probably because of how annoying Q would find it in retrospect. Would the present Q even wonder, for instance, why the owner of the bar was popping a bottle of champagne, was giving a toast, was leading the bar in a rousing pub song? Such an eager display of happiness would only worsen Q's mood and further cement Picard's victory.

… Perhaps. Perhaps not. But Picard didn't need to gloat. He simply needed to win, cleanly, quickly, and he could do that now.

When Q was halfway through his glass, Picard went to him again.

"So tell me. This isn't your first visit? You seem familiar to me."

"Do I? I suppose I've been here before. A long time ago."

"Well we're pleased you could return. You're welcome here as often as you like."

Q waved his hand as though he'd had enough of Picard's false generosity. He sat straighter. "I once frequented the wineries in this area, two, three times a week. I would perform magic tricks of a sort. Would you like to see?"

That startled Picard. When he found his words, it was too late. The trick was already done.

Q snapped and the wine in his glass emitted a steady purple light which flickered across the mantlepiece, the ceiling, across Q's face. Q squinted up at Picard, finding the light there too, no doubt. His mood had not changed. He still seemed sad, even bored as he snapped again and the color changed to a deep blue. A third snap, with concentration, Q's lips pursed: the wine glass shattered.

A bright yellow liquid spilled everywhere.

Picard crouched to the floor, dabbing the rug with his napkin. "I'm sorry," Q said, exaggerated and false. "That was clumsy. Look at you, cleaning up my mess. When you're finished with that, is it too much to ask for another glass? I promise, no more magic from me."

Picard was too concerned to fake surprise. Q had intentionally botched the trick. Why? Perhaps he was not so unhappy as he seemed. Perhaps he was _playing_.

"Certainly," Picard answered, cleaning the table now.

"You're not impressed," Q said. "I admit to being out of practice. I was famous for it, once."

Picard did not meet his eyes. Safer to resort to his old strategy. Subservient and—what was the other word?—demure? "Perhaps that's why you seem familiar."

"I don't think so. As I said, it was a long time ago. They amused my friend, and me in turn. She would have liked it here. It's hardly my preference, but we frequented bars like this one. She died. A year ago today."

Picard sat back on his ankles, flipping the stained cloth over his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Q inhaled, and nodded, and gazed around the room. "Well. There was nothing to be done for it."

Was this his new strategy? Was Picard supposed to be curious?

"I'll bring more wine," Picard said.

"And another glass."

"Of course."

In the cellar, Picard's thoughts were troubled, none of the smug victory of before. Q was speaking more, damn him. He had no one to do the speaking for him. And of course Q wouldn't leave himself dour; to have any chance at victory he must be in _some_ mood to speak. Edwen, was that her name? Q had killed the poor woman off. It wasn't at all what Picard had meant, though Q would blame him for not being more specific. Then again she might not be killed, not in the sense of murder. They might have moved further into the future, Q and he. But it was pointless thinking about it morally. Even if the woman had been altered and destroyed, like the wine in Q's trick, Q had distorted reality so much they had in a sense transcended morality.

How Q would love hearing him think that!

As Picard ascended the cellar steps, another thought paused him. What if Q was not in the dark? What if Q had remained in possession of his wits this time, was laughing at Picard this very moment? What if _that_ was the lesson, somehow? Picard had always trusted Q's honesty, but that Q would make himself so weak as he seemed now… it was not in his nature.

Picard could only make guesses. He had one interaction remaining, and for that he needed to concentrate. With a cautious resolve, he set the wine glass before Q.

Q stared at the ceiling, fingers interlaced. "I was lying before, about her dying. I could have done something about it."

Picard uncorked the bottle of wine, poured from it.

"It was her choice that I didn't," Q continued. "But I didn't have to listen to her. There was nothing in our agreement about that."

He would not flee. He would finish the pour.

"I'm curious. Arthur, is it? If you were going to die, if someone had a medicine to save you, would you take it?"

Picard didn't remember telling Q his name, but he wasn't about to correct him. "Probably. It would depend on my quality of life."

"It would fix all of that. You would feel young again."

"I see. A kind of fountain of youth."

"Yes. A fountain of youth."

"I suppose I would."

"Sit down, Arthur."

Picard sat. He put the bottle between them like some pathetic barrier.

Q leaned forward and moved the bottle aside. "If someone offered to take you places you had never seen before, places no one had ever seen before, would you go?"

_Merde_. Picard wouldn't find himself in the dead of space again, feeling the crush of a star again. He answered in a quiet voice: a small, dull sound. "If there was time."

Q sighed and fell back in the chair. "My family didn't care for her. They don't care for any of my friends. I've never been certain why. One suggested I could do better, once. But they're dull, all of them, and those that aren't dull, they're exhaustingly manic. They don't see the appeal in settling down. And I don't just take up with _any_one. It's rare I feel anything, and rarer for a person, and rarer still to find anyone with an ounce of tenacity where I'm concerned."

"You don't easily make friends," Picard repeated back to him.

"It isn't tenacity. Then I should befriend the most tenacious person in the universe, but that isn't what's happened."

Q wasn't aware. That was obvious now. The bet was still intact, and so Picard took the lull in conversation as an opportunity to extricate himself, slowly. As Q stared into the fireplace, Picard slid himself up and over the arm of the chair. He smoothed down his apron and, lest he insinuate himself into Q's view, decided to leave the wine bottle where it was. But just before he turned away, just before his eyes left Q's, Q's eyes found his.

"Look at you, bored already. How many nights must you hear this, the ramblings of perpetual strangers? Leave if you like. I won't blame you. But know this, Arthur, as you go. I was about to tell you something I've never told anyone."

Picard turned and walked away. At the bar, he closed the divider between front and back. He wiped a trail of water from the counter, then left the rag, pushed from the rag, propelled himself to the hallway, through it, into the room that was his office, the room that had overwhelmed him with thought a reality ago and now it gave him nothing at all. The chair was any chair. The faces on the walls were none that he recognized. He remembered the fire poker inspiring a deluge of memory. Now he could hold it and nothing. He used it to quicken the flames.

He had won. Hadn't he?

Three interactions, over and done. And he should feel excited. He did, a little.

But where was Q? Shouldn't Q appear now, sitting in that chair or leaning against that desk, sulking? Picard looked at the clock: 1910. Nearly two hours to go. And then he sighed, realizing what this was. Realizing his earlier doubt had been answered definitively. Q didn't know this was a game. He could not even know he had _lost_ the game until the clock ran down. That or Picard told him first.

Picard tossed the fire poker into the fireplace, a small act of rebellion, and left for the front room.

But Q wasn't there. The chair at the fireplace was empty.

Picard pushed out the front door. A broad oval of whites stones glowed in the moonlight. Two rundown buildings crouched on one side, and on the other began the rows of the vineyard. A tall figure was lumbering towards them, kicking rocks underfoot.

"Wait," Picard called.

Q turned to look at him sidelong. He held two glasses of wine, one of which he extended to Picard. "I thought you would change your mind."

"There's something I need to tell you," Picard said.

Q drank, and waited, his head cocked to the side. Picard drank too, a full swallow. _Q, end this. Q, end this game now. Jean-Luc Picard. Enterprise. _Why was he finding it difficult to say? Why had he called out "wait" and not Q's own name?

"I think you've had a little much of your own brew," Q said.

"That's not it."

"Is it the money? Do you need more?"

"I'm sorry for walking away like that," Picard said. "It was rude of me. No, I don't often entertain customers who are so frank. I wanted to apologize. You were nothing if not polite to me. On the whole."

Q's chuckle was quiet. He had been watching Picard patiently, fondly. It reminded Picard, rather uncomfortably, of their first few encounters on the Enterprise. "It's that pesky one year anniversary. I'm not in the politest of moods."

"I can't accept your money. It's a difficult night for you."

"I think you need it a little more than I."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I have a lot of it."

"Ah." Picard nodded. "To having a lot of money." He extended his glass, Q touched it, and they drank.

The talk of money bought him time, time to realize what exactly this niggling feeling was. Q had started out this bet appealing to everything he could think of and then eventually to Picard's curiosity. It hadn't worked back then, but now he was curious, very curious. Shouldn't that rightfully change things? Picard waited for Q to speak, to pick up the breadcrumb he had so obviously dropped between them, but Q did not. Heel scraping stone, he twisted to look at the stars.

"I had an unfortunate anniversary myself this week," Picard said.

"Oh?"

"Yes, my wife left me. _Two_ years ago. It was one of the lowest times of my life. I closed down the winery. I must have sat in front of that fireplace, the one where you and I…? For a month. My daughter brought me food. The other children, our children, wanted nothing to do with me. She convinced them I was a cad, that I had been sleeping with an employee, and they believed her. And she was the one cheating. Your friend, she left you on good terms, I assume?"

"The best."

"But your family. I suppose we can empathize on that."

"To family," Q said, extending his glass. Picard touched it, they drank.

He couldn't wait any longer. He was beginning to feel guilty. Worried, too, that if Q took to him now he might not be allowed the victory. He tapped the rim of his glass. "What was it you were going to tell me… in there?"

"Oh Arthur. I'm afraid you lost your chance."

"I see. So you're going to be a tease then."

Q smiled sadly and moved off. He found a path into the vineyard and Picard followed. It was difficult to see, easier to follow the sound of Q's footsteps. "You've never told anyone. Did I hear that correctly?"

"You did."

"What if I were to tell you something, something I've never told anyone."

"A trade? I'm not sure it would be equitable, this trade."

"It isn't a trade in the strictest sense. A way to pass the time. You leave, we never see each other again. I have the feeling you're a… a student in psychology. I'm not sure I could surprise someone like you anyway. Besides when you first intended to tell me, the thought of equity had not even entered your mind."

Q turned.

Picard stopped cold. In the dark, he could not see Q's features plainly enough to know what was there. Still he felt such guilt beneath Q's implicit gaze. He should end this. Q probably knew already; that was probably the meaning of the stare. Picard should end it first; he would not look so devious that way.

But resentment festered inside him, kept him firm. How many times had Q placed him in this very position? And who was to say Q didn't have this coming? Picard thought of an argument now, a reason for his actions. Whenever these bets ended, Q was always so difficult. And what Picard was doing, right now, was merely for the purpose of cementing his victory. He would not win this with three interactions. He would win with four.

"I'm a student of psychology myself," Picard explained.

"So you are."

"You're surprised," Picard said. "But you said yourself, I must be used to the ramblings of strangers."

Still, Q did not move.

"I'll show you something, this way." Picard passed around Q. It felt hotter, the air near the entity, and he was glad when a little down the path a cool wind struck his face. Of course, he had no idea where he was going. He was betting he would stumble onto something interesting, or something he could pretend to have been interested in. It was a good sign Q was already headed in this direction.

Q's footsteps harmonized with Picard's own. The ground crunched with leaves. Picard waited to be questioned further, but for better or worse he never was. At long last they broke through the vines. Picard found himself atop a bare, rocky hill overlooking a river. The two moons—the names had escaped Picard—painted the surface of the water. A path led down to a tall, oak-ish tree with thick, snaking roots.

"One of my favorite views." After Picard had pronounced this, he settled onto a tree root.

Q reclined next to him. The entity pulled a wine bottle from under the root, pronouncing, "Oh look!" and Picard pretended to be startled. He said the right things too—a joke about recognizing the label and needing to fire an employee tomorrow morning—all the while relieved that Q was in a jovial mood again, that his scrutiny seemed to have passed elsewhere. Perhaps now was the right time. He did not feel so resentful. _Q. Enterprise. Picard._

"You must be quite a remarkable magician," Picard said.

"Go on," Q answered, sipping.

"You spoke of reversing the process of aging. Are you a scientist in disguise?"

"A scientist who dabbles in light shows." Q flicked his glass, and with a clink the wine emitted a white light which illuminated the whole valley—only for a moment, something twice as long as a flash. The light faded, and when Q swilled the glass it was gone.

Picard smiled. "How do you do it?"

"Ah, but there's that saying about magicians."

"You're a scientist."

"I'm neither. And both. You're an interesting person, you know that?"

Picard forced a laugh.

"You aren't startled by my 'magic,' for one. For two, I'm still here, talking to you. When I broke the glass in the bar, you didn't react how I would have expected."

"Is the rest of your family talented in this way?"

"And why should that matter?"

"There's the possibility that their negativity is rooted in jealousy."

"No," Q said smartly, setting aside his glass. "That isn't a possibility at all. They don't fully understand me. I don't fully understand myself. Perhaps that's their problem, but it's an easy problem to have, when you're me."

At last Picard was striking on it, the information he sought. This laugh he did not force.

"Something funny?"

"I don't think anyone fully understands themselves. But it's good to hear you say it. And others who come through the bar. It helps us, all of us, feel less isolated."

Q laughed.

"And why are _you_ laughing?"

"And others who come through the bar." Q did not say it menacingly, but Picard was reassured nonetheless when Q topped up Picard's glass and sighed at the scenery.

"Are you going to tell me now?" Picard asked.

"Tell you what?"

"Unfortunately I have no idea." He felt Q looking at him. He knew what was happening, knew he was becoming interesting to Q, but he hoped—no, knew—his anonymity would shroud him. Arthur Weathersby was no captain. Then again, neither was the woman who had died.

They were only a few meters from the river's edge. Q crouched there, letting the water flow across his hand.

"Most people can go their whole lives not understanding themselves and it doesn't matter at all. Stars are born and die. Galaxies dance and become one. But someone like me, I can't afford to be sloppy. It's something I've had brought to my attention quite often lately. And so I find the prospect of puzzlement at myself more than a little disconcerting."

Q's coat brushed against the mud. It was odd seeing him without the Starfleet uniform—almost fascinating under the influence of the wine. Picard looked at his glass, wishing it were full of water.

"You've been so patient." Q spoke over his shoulder, his voice clearer now. "If I tell you, will you promise not to be frightened?"

Good God, Picard thought. Q was going to tell him who he was, who he actually was, as though it would be some grand revelation to him. He must do this on every planet.

"I'm not here for one anniversary. I'm here for two. But the second one, it hasn't happened yet."

"An anniversary that hasn't happened yet."

"Another friend dying."

"You're so certain."

"The other friend, the one I met here, she was hardly unique. Ordinary actually. One of the dozens I've picked up over time. With an infinite sample, it isn't hard to find someone exactly the same, somewhere, if you know how to look. But this friend. 'Friend' has never fit. My interest in him is… unique."

"How is it unique?"

"He isn't as warm as the others. Passionate, but he won't show it, which doesn't matter so much, I suppose, if I know it's there. Wit, curiosity, tenacity, grit—he possesses most of the qualities I admire. What makes him unique…"

"Yes?"

"It's what he does. Like the wine business is what you do. He's a modicum of power, nothing compared to my own, a flea's breath. But it isn't nothing where he is concerned. Arrogance, smugness, defiance. Those I do not admire. If I don't ignore them, I eliminate them. I simply present myself and they're gone." Q flicked a splash across the water. "And he's the _worst_ of offenders. He's seen my hand and he continues to resist me. And I've let him. I've _enjoyed_ letting him. Is it narcissism, loving that which I see in myself? I desperately hope so. But I can't be certain enough, I fear I will never know. His death will come and go, and it will remain a mystery forever."

Picard considered the wine again. He drank it, all of it. "Tell me, Q. This so-called friend. Is his name Jean-Luc Picard?"

Q rose to his feet and suddenly his features were perfectly distinguishable, despite the darkness. Perhaps it was the moonlight off the river. Probably not. Picard waited for the confusion of Q's face as he shifted down, down through the tangle of realizations, the maze of his own creation. Instead, Q only scowled at him. It was as if Arthur F. Weathersby had done little more than insult him.

"Jean-Luc Picar—"

"I heard," Q interrupted him. His mouth moved slightly yet his voice was twice as loud.

Then came the emotions. Q's eyes flickered… but he turned, hiding the rest of it. He folded his arms. The fingers of his hand flexed claw-like.

"Consent," he said. His voice resounded over the water.

Picard stood. "Curiosity. You're the one who designed this, it should be no surprise."

Q turned to glare at him.

"So it's ruined, isn't it, the bet?" Picard asked. "You already know me."

"Ruined in your favor."

"I _did_ win. I don't suppose you'll honor that."

"Honor. There's another word, pretty from your lips."

"I am not to blame for this. This has befuddled me from beginning to end. I stumbled through. Yes, I was curious what the great Q had never told a soul but would tell a lowly bartender whose existence he barely deigned to acknowledge. Yes, I pursued that curiosity; you appealed to my curiosity. But you!—you never needed the bet. You had your answer, from your own mouth. My being a captain is integral to your interest."

"You flatter yourself."

"I am but a parrot. Do you think I wanted to learn the day of my own death? If any of it was true. No, I prefer not to wonder. I recant curiosity. Return me to my ship, Q."

"How tortured you must be."

"As I said, _I _did not want this."

"I didn't want this either, but someone urged me on."

"Yes, heartless of me, making you finish what you'd begun. Making—no, asking—that you deliver on your promise. Well, Q, I've completed what you asked of me, unless you feel you must change the rules again. I have a job to do, minuscule though you think it is. Return me to it."

Q continued to glare.

Picard took one step toward him, his jaw set. His next step he took into his ready-room on the Enterprise. He glanced around, making sure Q was nowhere to be seen. He was alone.

Picard closed his eyes, enjoying the hum of the engines. The room spun, but he held the table for balance. Water. Entirely too much wine. Entirely too much Q. He made for the replicator, one hand to steady himself, one hand pressed into his forehead, relieved it was, at least for now, over.


	5. Chapter 5

There was an away mission on a Federation-hostile planet and a science officer, an ensign with a lovely smile and a promising future, had been killed.

Picard officiated her funeral in the holodeck. The program was one she had requested: an enormous garden, a tangle of gravel pathways, shaded benches and fruit trees of every kind. In the center of the garden beside a long, shallow fountain around twenty people had gathered, her friends and her superior officers, many of whom Picard did not know but all of whom had been proud to serve beside her. Picard was touched by a ritual they shared, every one of them, dropping an orange geranium into the fountain. He wanted to ask them what it meant, but the timing never seemed appropriate. One by one, they broke off the stem and sent the flower floating across the still water, until the last of them had left, the doors had vanished, and Picard was alone.

He remained there a while, thinking.

Although her family had already been notified, Picard had intended to send his own personal condolences. But when the moment had come for him to write the letter, the words dammed up. He might have forced himself through his block, but the ensign deserved better than that, and so did her family. They deserved his sincerity. On the second day, the words had not come either, and on the third day he realized he should, must, write something, or else he should meet with the Counsellor. It was not a proper for a starship captain to be inexplicably assuaged with grief, so much so that it would affect his duties.

After a walk through the garden, Picard began to form the words. He ended the program—would anyone ever run it again? In his quarters he wrote the letter, sent it, and sighed with relief. Perhaps it was the threat of therapy that had pushed him across the line.

He was restless afterwards. He went to Ten Forward, hoping to find Guinan there, but it was someone else on duty. He took his drink to the corner of the room, against the window, facing the stars. Though he glanced at a PADD occasionally, he was only half-reading. The PADD's purpose was primarily to dissuade anyone from joining him.

"You don't often come here, do you?" said Q.

Picard stiffened.

The entity was two tables away, his feet propped up. He was not facing the stars.

Picard touched his COMM badge, but it had appeared in Q's hand.

"Honestly, Jean-Luc. You didn't report my last visit. Or the one before that, or the one before that."

"This is Ten Forward," Picard said quietly.

"Your private ready-room is far more ominous, don't you think?"

"You appear on a starship wearing a captain's uniform—"

"Standard issue for me now."

"—pretending you are _not_ a dangerous presence, have _not_ endangered this ship before. In a public meeting place."

"I'd say I'm more dangerous in your quarters." Q winked.

"Computer," Picard said. The computer did not chirp. Everyone else in Ten Forward was still mingling, still as-of-yet undisturbed. Q held a finger over his lips. He slipped across the tables and sat in front of Picard. Picard stood, and Q sighed.

"Have it your way, _mon Capitaine_." Q slid the COMM badge across the table.

Picard stepped away. Still no one had noticed. He kept an eye on Q as he hailed Riker on the bridge and, over the course of a minute, had the room cleared out. When a security officer confirmed the room was empty, Picard nodded to him. Two of them took their places outside the doors.

Q, meanwhile, had migrated. He was now behind the bar, with several vials of liquid lined up before him, and he appeared to be mixing a drink.

"Happy now?" Q called.

"Is there something I can do for you, Q? Or did you really come here for a drink?"

"Next time I _will_ appear in your ready-room. You'll never believe me, _now_, but I was trying to give you a modicum of privacy."

"Privacy? I see. Ten Forward is your idea of paying lip service to that fiasco of a bet. I was curious if the subject would arise and how you would misconstrue it."

Q tasted his concoction but spit it back into the cup. "Complaints, complaints, always complaints."

"Yes, complaints. For as long as you are an inconvenience."

"_Moi_? I was just over there. You did all of that."

Picard wouldn't argue his side, not when Q would never see it. "Why have you come?"

Q stirred a black liquid until it turned golden yellow. "Nothing important. You, actually. It's just I couldn't help but notice you seemed so heavy, so weighted down, and I couldn't help but sense something _I _had said might be at the heart of it. So go on, Jean-Luc. Tell old, omnipotent Q what's bothering you."

The doors opened and Riker charged into the room, his chin raised.

"I have it, Number One. Thank you."

Riker nodded, a little disappointedly, and after a moment of glaring at Q, left. When Picard turned back, Q had put the stirrer aside, had folded his hands and was watching Picard as though Riker had never entered.

"You can't pretend you aren't bothered," Q said. "You're a little jumpier than usual, even."

"And what does that mean?"

"Would you like to talk or wouldn't you? I apologize for taking my time. I was the tiniest bit annoyed. Do you need a refresher? Of all the species, you humans have among the worst of memories. I could just… wave my hand."

"You might have spoken to me earlier and still taken your time. You conveniently omit your mastery over it."

Q smiled. He leaned forward, eager, as though he was settling in.

He was serious, then. After months of silence, Picard had assumed the subject was closed. He had sectioned it off in his mind and—Q was right—had begun to forget some of the finer points. Now he needed to remember. He could remember. Already it was coming back. He looked at the bar chair and thought about sitting, buying himself some time with a drink, but it felt too intimate a gesture and so he remained where he was. "I wonder if I were to tell you to leave and never return, if you would obey it."

"I wonder if you would say it," Q said.

"For the sake of my crew, I think I would."

"You think."

"Quite often I wish I had never met you, Q."

Q did not reply to that. He titled his head in the other direction, listening.

"I have fantasized about it. But even in the dreaming I can't forget the help you gave us with the Borg, longterm costs notwithstanding. I have seen you help species as often as I've seen you harm them. It's the sentiment I expressed on our last encounter, whereupon you launched into a game with the spoken intent to, I believe, prove I am of worth regardless of my rank, something I am already aware of, but the actual intent of which was to puzzle out your own character. Is this to be the calibre of your lessons going forward? Because I'd prefer to wash my hands of them now."

"You'd prefer. It's still very weak."

"_I _am weak, Q, next to you."

"At least you acknowledge I've had my better days. You can go to yellow alert, Picard. There's no lessons to be given today."

Q gestured to the bar stool and Picard reluctantly sat.

"It _was_ a fiasco," Q said. "On that we are agreed. But instead of declaring it the harbinger of some hateful trend, why can't we call it what it was: a deviation. Whatever it turned into, and you were far more audience to that than I, it had nothing to do with my original intent. It had evolved beyond management. In fact, I am going so far as to apologize for that."

"Very good," Picard said. "Go ahead."

Q smiled, acknowledging he'd been caught. "I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted. No penance required."

"How gracious. So, that's done, we're agreed on something, miraculously, your crew is safe, you are safe among them, and yet you still seem… somber. Why is it, I wonder? Something sent you fretting down here, something about the difficulty with that letter."

Picard readjusted his seating. "Death is a difficult subject."

"And a child too. She was twenty."

"Yes. She was."

"It makes you think, doesn't it? You could go at any moment, any one of you. You yourself have had your share of tragedy. How old was your nephew?"

"Q, I would prefer not to discuss this."

He expected Q to critique his word choice again, "prefer." Instead Q waved his hand and the bar was cleared. Picard straightened, meeting Q's eyes, sensing something important was to come.

"I know you did the math," Q said. "You did the math within an hour of my returning you, and you looked at the calendar too. I know, deplorable memory notwithstanding, you can't forget something like that." Q's expression softened into something full of sympathy. "Jean-Luc, you aren't going to die this year, or any year in your near future. You're going to have a long life, and the day that was on Braetis has no connection to the day that was here."

Picard nodded slowly. "So you say."

"It's true. Braetis, Federation time, insympatico. As much as I hate killing the suspense for you, I don't like seeing you worry. And taking your memory, I like that even less. And so here I am, revealing you're going to be an old man. I'm sorry about that too."

"That women. She was real?"

"Yes. And the game began long before you were. It was supposed to stay that way, until you told me to eliminate her. What you said about using her to cheat? There might have been some truth to that. I thought I could divorce her from my memories of the planet, but it didn't happen. Somewhere between my creating everything and simultaneously forgetting it, we moved into the future, to that unfortunate anniversary—another situation where I'd be likely to talk—and the rest is… me apologizing."

Picard wondered if it was true then, if he was unique among all of the people Q had known… so far. He couldn't ask.

"I ran the bet again. Cleanly. I created a new reality—one which doesn't exist, an offshoot from the multiverse—I could get into _all kinds _of trouble. You weren't Captain, you were third officer. The Enterprise came to Farpoint. And you'll be pleased to hear I _didn't_ notice you. I went on blissfully being me. So congratulations, Jonny. You picked the wrong multiverse to be born in."

"I won."

"Won? No. We never bet on that."

"I won in spirit."

"No again. You were correct in your initial observation, but as you so astutely observed the bet had little to do with proving that. Even if it did, you went far out of bounds."

Picard left Q at the bar. He ordered a cup of tea near the doorway, feeling an anxious energy that flexed his hands. He wanted to ask Q to leave. No, to demand it. Would Q listen? Q had already suggested he missed the old, demanding Picard. Picard sat at the table, the one he'd started with, frowning at the stars. And then Q sat directly in his view.

"I thought about what you said, Jean-Luc. It does seem unfair that you must always ask me for everything and I don't make at least some appearance of it with you."

Picard sighed heavily.

"An appearance is all I can make."

"Q," Picard said. "Get off my ship."

Q nodded. He fell back in his chair as if deciding whether to obey. "You should be proud of how warm, how deferential you were, when you wanted my secret."

"You should be proud of how tolerable you were when you didn't know it was me."

Q's smile was slow, as though he was fighting it. He snapped and was gone.

At last, Picard could watch the stars. He did feel better. It wasn't Q, however; it could never be Q. It was the tea, warm in his throat. It was finishing the letter. It was the room to himself, it was the view. It was the feeling of peace, the feeling of a part of himself which had not been at peace since Farpoint, now straightened out like a pucker in his uniform.

He enjoyed this feeling only a moment. He looked around him, noticing the emptiness of the room. Then he touched his COMM badge and cancelled the red alert.

**FIN**

* * *

Thanks for reading! One R down, do the other R if you enjoyed! Even if you can't do the other R, I cannot say often enough or loudly enough how much I appreciate your interest. It means so much. I'm taking a break from writing fanfic, not like I ever wrote often enough to warrant the word "break." But I will truly miss this community.


End file.
